1978 projects - with balls and otherwise

most of you are aware, i assume, that i hold the 1978 topps baseball set in high regard. so, when someone uses the design to develop custom cards, i pay attention.

such was the case with gio at when topps had (base)balls who put together a set of cards using the 1978 design that celebrated the 19 players who hit 30 or more home runs in 1977. i enjoyed seeing gio post these cards over the course of several months, and was excited when he offered actual printed sets for purchase.  i bought two sets, each of which arrived in a 1978 topps-esque pack:

i chose the bobby bonds and george foster wrappers. unfortunately, none of the four dodgers in the set were used for a wrapper, but bonds was a guy i had met at a hot stove dinner and foster was the man with 52 home runs!  the backs of the wrappers were tailored to the players, too

sadly, no gum or sendaway offers.

the cards are set in order of home runs hit, from highest to lowest, so foster is card number 1, with jeff burroughs and greg luzkinski behind him

al home run leader jim rice is number four, followed by mike schmidt and bonds

graig nettles matched bonds' total, followed by steve garvey and george scott, who both hit 33 bombs in '77.

reggie jackson is next, with the other reggie (smith) matching his home run total, followed by gary carter

tied with carter at 31 homers are jason thompson, oscar gamble, and johnny bench

dodger teammates dusty baker and ron cey just made the set with 30 home runs, as did butch hobson

and richie zisk.

the checklist is card number 20, and the last card of reggie there is a special club member card.  here's the back of the checklist, explaining the premise behind the set:

the cards look and feel great in hand and it's nice to see gamble and zisk on this design as southsiders rather than bad airbrushing. the george scott card is the only one in the set that uses a photo without a bat, and the number of swinging action shots makes the set even better for me.

i am adding the reggie jackson club member card to my lurker collection thanks to charlie hough and steve yeager (barely) making the card, but the rest of the set goes in a binder with other custom cards that i've accumulated over the years.

for a little more, gio sent me some extra dodgers, so i have a garvey for the pc and a team set as well. awesome stuff, gio!

in a similar vein, i also added to my last comc order the complete throwback thursday set topps issued in 2017 using the 1978 record breaker design. i already had the bellinger 

in my dodger collection, but wanted a complete set for my 1978 topps master set effort.  here it is:

i was able to get all six cards for less than the original price of the set, which is nice considering both the bellinger and the aaron judge were pretty spendy four years ago.

finally, i also added the 70 years of topps card from 2021 topps update that used the '78 design

i was hoping for a different player to be featured after topps chose well for series 1 (shohei ohtani) and series 2 (cal ripken jr), but oh well. i love this card design because it brings me back to the summer of '78 and sitting in my neighborhood with my friends opening packs from the 7-11. great times.